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South African U17 men’s team Amajimbos come to their second Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) game against Cameroon at the Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, today to seal their qualification for the U17 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
This is the intention of Amajimbos' head coach Vela Khumalo as they go for their second win in Group B after beating Egypt 4-3 in a high-scoring match on Monday.
Out of the 16 teams in the competition, 10 will qualify for the World Cup, with the top two teams in the groups guaranteed direct qualification.
"We take it one game at a time and yes, we would love to be in the World Cup but we then say, let's win the first game and let's get to the next game. Before we can even think of going to the quarterfinals or semi-finals, the first thing would be qualifying for the World Cup, which is our main target and going through, we'll see how it goes," Khumalo said.
Good news for Amajimbos is that midfielder Lebogang Mswane, who was stretched off in the opening game and transferred to the hospital after suffering a head injury, was discharged yesterday and has reunited with the team at their hotel in Casablanca.
Cameroon is also desperate for points after losing 2-1 to Burkina Faso in the opening game, Khumalo says it’s essential that they minimise their mistakes in this game and not give away chances like they did against Egypt.
"We need to minimise on our mistakes and calculate things and anticipate. I think a little bit of that did not happen so what we'll take is that we need to minimise, we don't want to concede goals,” the coach added.
“Coming to the tournament like this, you've got to be more resolute at the back, you don't want to concede goals but you also want to convert the chances. I think we put ourselves under unnecessary duress, looking at the opportunities that we created and we did not convert those chances.
“Meaning we are not really clinical but if we were clinical, we could talk about something else."
Khumalo says the youngsters are also inspired by the performances of their big brothers in the Bafana Bafana team, who are currently bronze medalists in the AFCON seniors and also riding high in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
